Experts weigh health risks of twin towers fires & dust

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http://www.nydailynews.com/2002-02-10/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-140914.asp

WTC's Air of Uncertainty

Experts weigh health risks of twin towers fires & dust

By PAUL H.B. SHIN and RUSS BUETTNER

Daily News Staff Writers

ome people living or working near Ground Zero may have faced serious health

risks since Sept. 11, but environmental experts say they don't know enough

to be certain about long-term harm.

For months, toxic contamination in the smoking rubble and billowing dust

from the site of the terrorist attacks has prompted fears of illness among

wheezing firefighters and rescue workers, anxious students, office workers

and casual passersby.

A police recovery unit carries three flag-draped bodies from the WTC site

yesterday.

Health officials now believe that most of those affected - excepting

unprotected workers at Ground Zero directly exposed to toxins - are not

likely to suffer permanent damage to their health from any single pollutant.

That tenuous assurance comes with an unsettling caveat: Scientists know next

to nothing about the effects of the unprecedented mix of hazardous

substances at the disaster site. That included troubling amounts of

cancer-causing agents such as benzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and

asbestos.

" Every test that has been done says the air quality was in acceptable

limits, " Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday. " I think some people are just never

going to want to believe that. "

Say Safety Overstated

More information may come at a hearing tomorrow requested by Sen. Hillary

Clinton (D-N.Y.), and an investigation by the Environmental Protection

Agency's ombudsman.

" I think people want definitive answers, and there aren't any, " said Regina

Santella, a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public

Health.

But many people think government officials have overstated safety at the

site.

Two days after the attacks, an EPA press release called initial test results

" reassuring. " It cited " no asbestos or very low levels " and said other

compounds " were not detectable or not of concern. "

On Sept. 18, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman issued a statement

reassuring " the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is

safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink. "

The EPA also cautioned site workers to wear respirators and told tenants to

be careful in cleaning up Trade Center dust.

But Whitman's general assurances resonated loudest with many, among them

firefighters, who then shunned respirators.

" We gave precautions, but what people heard overwhelmingly is that

everything down here is just perfectly safe, " said Helen Cervantes, an

EPA spokeswoman.

The EPA didn't release data to support its conclusions until late October,

under pressure from an environmental law group.

The data showed that benzene - a known cancer-causing substance found in

emissions from burning coal and oil products - had been detected at levels

58 times above federal workplace standards. Hearing that, many felt misled

by the earlier assurances.

" There were plenty of opportunities for them to say, 'Hey, look, we just

don't know,' " said Rockoff, 25, who lives in Battery Park City.

The benzene figure by itself is startling, but the standard is based on

consistent exposure - eight hours a day, 40 hours a week - over 30 years. No

one came close to that exposure.

Santella, who studies the impact of pollution on cancer rates, said the

benzene reading indicates that only workers in the rubble face any risk.

" It was taken almost below ground level, directly over the fire, " Santella

said. " But if you look at a sample that was taken a few feet away, it's

low. "

However, many who took Whitman's assurance at face value no longer trust the

EPA.

Firefighter union officials accuse the agency of overstating safety to

appear in control. " I think that was the message they were attempting to

send out, and I think we have a problem now because of that message, " said

Tom , a spokesman for the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

Perhaps the most sustained cause for worry has been asbestos, a fire

retardant used in the Trade Center. It became part of the superfine dust

that pervaded apartments and offices.

The EPA said outdoor tests for asbestos showed no cause for concern. But

responsibility for indoor samples fell to the city Department of Health,

which still hasn't released results.

Neighbors Affected

Left in the breach, landlords, tenants and businesses had to decide for

themselves whether to pay for costly asbestos testing and abatement or just

mop up.

Tisch, 62, a lawyer who lives in Battery Park City, said he and his

wife, Carol Tisch, decided to pay a lab to analyze samples from their home.

" It showed allowable levels, but it was there - more than normal, but less

than what they said was hazardous, " he said.

Groups of parents at several lower Manhattan schools hired consultants and

lawyers, who pushed the Board of Education to expand environmental tests.

Despite EPA assurances, tests in November outside Stuyvesant High School

found asbestos well above federal standards.

In memos that leaked out, an EPA chemist criticized the agency for applying

less stringent standards to the Trade Center area than to asbestos problems

elsewhere.

" The cleanup around Ground Zero was uncoordinated and haphazard, " said Dave

Newman, an industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational

Safety and Health.

HP Environmental, a Reston, Va.-based company, determined that the

chrysotile asbestos fibers in the dust were more likely to be small -

meaning they might more easily work their way into the lungs, even though

larger fibers are generally considered more dangerous.

HP also found that the material that once held the asbestos together had

been so pulverized that the fibers became easily airborne when disturbed.

HP scientist Hugh Granger suspects that in the days after the attacks, EPA

scientists were silenced by political concerns.

" The people at EPA are 10 times brighter than I am, " said Granger. " I think

some people who really know the answers to all this are being a little coy. "

Dr. Muthiah Sukumaran, a pulmonary specialist and director of intensive care

at NYU Downtown Hospital, said he has seen 100 " WTC cough " patients at his

Tribeca office, many with no history of respiratory problems. He blames the

condition on irritants in the dust cloud.

" Every single person with lung problems got worse, " Sukumaran said.

" Fortunately, all the people undergoing treatment are improving. "

Again, health experts are critical of early assurances by the EPA that dust

from concrete and fiberglass insulation was within acceptable safety

standards simply because particles were small.

NYU's Thurston said it was the larger particles that proved most irritating.

" People got the signal from the EPA and others that the levels of fine

particles were not a significant threat, " he said. " Meanwhile, they're

having symptoms. Those two things didn't add up. "

The Big Question

A huge unknown remains: the long-term effects of brief but intense exposure

to a toxic cocktail of PCBs, dioxin, benzene and other known carcinogens.

Could they have combined to cause an assault on the body never seen before?

There's not extensive research on the question, said ,

regional administrator of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

She said OSHA plugged sample numbers from the site into formulas that aim to

predict the " additive effect " of multiple toxins, but found nothing of

concern.

And what about pregnant women and unborn babies, older people and those with

weakened immune systems?

" That's where there is a gap in our knowledge, really, " said Dr. Frederica

Perera, who is heading a study at Columbia's Center for Children's

Environmental Health of pregnant women who were in the area.

" If all these chemicals that were found before didn't go up in the air, they

had to go down, " said Kupferman, director of the New York Environmental

Law and Justice Project. " We believe that they're sitting there in pools of

water below surface. "

In the meantime, many scientists believe the relative risk to most who live

and work in the area should be kept in perspective.

" I've heard people who were covered with dust are living in fear of lung

cancer, and it's absolutely ridiculous to be that concerned, " Santella said.

" But, of course, you can't prove that people aren't going to get sick.

That's the other problem. You can't prove a negative. "

Original Publication Date: 2/10/02